Israeli
Soldiers Shoot and Kill A US Citizen as She Holds Her 9-Month-Old Baby
in Her Lap

With
the Morgue Overflowing, the Family is Forced to Bury the 21-Year-Old
Palestinian-American in the Ramallah Hospital Parking Lot

The
US State Department Does Nothing

NEW
YORK - April 3 - Israeli soldiers on Friday shot and killed Suraida
Saleh in Ramallah as she was holding her 9-month old baby in her lap.
She and her husband were driving to safety at her father's house after
hearing shooting near their home. Suraida Saleh was a Palestinian-American,
born in George Washington Hospital, in Washington, D.C.

Reached
on the phone today in Ramallah, her father Farhan Mohammed Saleh, told
Democracy Now! that Israeli soldiers asked the husband to stop the car
and started shooting. He said they shot Suraida in the head and chest,
and she died immediately. After shooting the husband repeatedly, they
let him go. He took the baby from his dead wife's lap and stumbled up
the road to the home of his father-in-law, where he collapsed.

With
the Ramallah hospital morgue overflowing and Israeli soldiers preventing
anyone from reaching the cemetery, Saleh said he was forced to bury
his daughter in the hospital parking lot alongside dozens of other Palestinians.

Suraida's
father, Farhan Mohammed Saleh, wept as he said: "I took her out
of the hospital refrigerator [morgue] with my own hands, and my wife
and my older son with me, we took her outside and put her in the ground,
just temporary."

On
Tuesday, Democracy Now! spoke to the Office of Consular Affairs at the
State Department. The office said the State Department was aware that
Suraida Saleh was a U.S. citizen, but did not plan to release a statement
or take any action. Farhan Mohammed Saleh said that the State Department
has done nothing.

As
he spoke, you could hear his grandson crying in the background. "[My
grandson] is with me now. He is 9 months old, I don't know what's going
to happen with him without his mother. You know, he's crying all the
time, that's what makes me suffer."

Details
of Sureida's death were obtained by American Muslims for Global Peace
and Justice (http://www.global-peace.org). They emailed, called and
faxed major media for two days and no one picked up the story. Today
is the first time the voice of Farhan Mohammed Saleh, the father of
Suraida, will be broadcast nationwide. The following is a partial transcript
of the interview that Amy Goodman, host of the radio and television
show Democracy Now!, did with Farhan Mohammed Saleh in Ramullah:

Farhan
Mohammed Saleh [FMS]: ...some of the neighbors, when they hear the shooting
and saw her in the car, they call the ambulance... she stayed in the
refrigerator [hospital morgue] from Friday morning up to yesterday evening
[5 days]. ... I took her out of the hospital refrigerator with my own
hands, and my wife and my older son with me, we took her outside and
put her in the ground, just temporary, somewhere in the hospital, until
they can take her to the cemetery.

Amy
Goodman [AG]: You buried your daughter in the parking lot?

FMS:
Yes, yes, she was with 2 more women, the men were buried separately.
It is a temporary cemetery they make...

AG:
How many other people are buried in the parking lot?

FMS:
About 25 or 27 people. Three women were yesterday, and about 23 or 24
men.

AG:
Why couldn't you get to the cemetery?

FMS:
Nobody can go to the cemetery, there was shooting going everywhere.
They just give 1 or 2 hours to the people to see their dead. We passed
from the side of the tanks and the soldiers, and we was scared... [my
grandson] is with me now. He is 9 months old, I don't know what's going
to happen with him without his mother. You know, he's crying all the
time, that's what makes me suffer. [Crying of baby in the background]

AG:
Has the US embassy come to see you?

FMS:
Nobody, nobody up to now. CLIP I called 2 or 3 times and I talked with
some people working and nobody has shown up to now, nobody has seen
me up to now. I don't know what I'm going to do with the baby now. [He
begins to weep.]

It's
a bad situation, a bad situation we have really, we just ask God to
help her. It's killing people everywhere, in the streets, in the houses.
They broke down the houses, the buildings, they get inside the houses
and the apartments and they kill people and break down everything. That's
barbarism. That's the situation we have. I don't know where are the
human rights? The US and all the world, they're calling for human rights
- where are the human rights? Civilian people, they're killing everywhere,
in the streets and the houses and the apartments. Some buildings have
10 to 15 apartments, they get inside the apartments and houses and are
killing everywhere,

For
more information about this story, please contact "Democracy Now!
"at (212) 431-9090. This show can be heard on mp3 at